Transcript Twitter for Professional Learning Jennifer Malone, Loudon County Schools Twitter: @jenmalonetn “You have to attend classes.

Twitter for Professional Learning
Jennifer Malone, Loudon County Schools
Twitter:
@jenmalonetn
“You have to attend classes. You can’t just follow
me on Twitter.”
•Why Should I Use Twitter????
SHARE
PLN
What is obvious to you may be amazing to someone else.
Establish an international network of colleagues.
Sounding
Board
Not sure what to do? Ask!!!
Public
Relations
Let people know the good things.
In the
Know
Helps you stay in touch with latest trends and ideas
•Getting Started
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Go to www.twitter.com and sign up for an account if
you don't already have one.
Name: For the sake of transparency, you are
encouraged to use your full name. If you aren't
comfortable with that yet, at least put your first
name and last initial.
Email: Depending on your account settings, you may
get a lot of email from Twitter. Also, you need to
take into account any social media policies your
employer has in place. I recommend using a
personal email address when you first sign up so the
account is not tied to your employment in any way.
Password: Please choose a strong password.
Something you can remember but isn't easy for
someone else to guess.
•Choose Your User Name
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When you first set up your account, Twitter will
ask you to choose a username/handle. This is how
others will come to know you on Twitter.
Your username can be key in building a network
on Twitter. It can be simple, like your last name
and first initial, but it can also say something
about why you are on Twitter.
All Twitter usernames must be unique, so it may
take a couple of tries for you to find one that
works.
Your username can be changed later, although it's
best to do this before you get too many followers
so they don't get confused.
•Account Settings
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On the Account page, found under Settings, you will need to make
some decisions.
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Username & Email: This is where you will come later if you want to
change your username or the email address associated with your
account.
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Let Others Find Me By My Email Address: I recommend NOT checking
this since you are trying to connect mostly with other professionals and
not your friends who might have your email address.
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Language & Time Zone: Select what is correct for you.
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Tweet Location: I recommend NOT checking because this will literally
tell the world exactly where you are when you Tweet. If tweeting from
home, this could reveal your home location. If Tweeting from your
mobile phone, it could let others know exactly where you are.
•Account Settings
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Tweet Media: I recommend Not checking either of these
unless you are planning to use Twitter for "other" reasons.
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Protect my Tweets: This setting is up to you. If you check it,
only people who follow you can see your Tweets. People
who want to follow you will need to be approved by you.
Checking this will slow down the building of your network.
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Personalization: Up to you. Probably leave unchecked to
start.
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Password reset: Leave unchecked.
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Country: USA
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Twitter Archive: Use this later
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Save Changes
•Your Profile
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Your Profile is another key to helping you connect with folks
who have interests similar to yours on Twitter. When you follow
someone, they will likely look at your profile to make sure they
want you getting their Tweets. Followers can be blocked (more
on that later.)
Picture: As soon as you can, plan to upload a picture or avatar
that represents you. The generic Twitter egg is a dead giveaway
of a Twitter newbie and often spammers who don't bother with
a profile pic. Choose your photo carefully; make sure it is
professional and you are comfortable with the planet seeing it.
Name: Again, full name is most transparent. You can just do first
name if you want, or put your Twitter username here (like I did
at first) until you get comfortable.
Location: Be as specific as you want. Remember, everyone can
see this. Can also be left blank.
•Your Profile
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Web: If you have a website that represents you personally, put it here. I
would not put a school website unless your social media policy allows it
and/or you have specific permission from an administrator. This can be left
blank.
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Bio: The most important part! This lets folks know what you are interested
in. This, combined with the Tweets you post, will most often be the
determining factor in whether someone decides to follow you and/or block
you. If possible, include that Tweets represent you, not your employer.
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Post your Tweets to Facebook: Highly do NOT recommend. Every Tweet will
become a status update on your Facebook profile. A good way to annoy your
Facebook friends!
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SAVE CHANGES
•Other Settings
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Password: Where you go to change your
password.
Mobile: You can connect your mobile phone to
your Twitter account. I suggest you not do this
unless you want to be inundated by text
messages. If you want to use Twitter from a smart
phone, there's an app for that!
Notifications: Control what emails Twitter sends
you. You may want to turn most of these off so
you don't get tons of them, but it is nice to get
emailed when someone new follows you,
especially when you are first building your
network. It will remind you to check for and block
spammers & other inappropriate accounts.
•Other Settings
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Design: Lets you pick from one of Twitter's standard
backgrounds for your profile page. There are also many
Twitter backgrounds you can design for free elsewhere
on the net. Just Google for them!
Apps: This page shows any third party apps you have
allowed to access your Twitter account. If you enable
an app on your mobile device you'll see it listed here.
You will also see another app we are going to add later.
Be careful with letting any and all apps that ask have
access to your Twitter account. Do a little research to
make sure they are reliable and not just trying to steal
your password. Also make sure they aren't going to do
a lot of auto-tweeting that will annoy your followers.
•Finding Tweeps to Follow
WHO TO FOLLOW
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Some folks follow hundreds or thousands of people on Twitter. To start with, it's
recommended you follow at minimum 20 active users and at most 50. Until you
get the hang of things, you don't want to get overwhelmed!
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Follow me! (You can unfollow me later if you don't like what I Tweet about.)
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Follow people off of the recommended lists posted as subtabs. Here's some tips
on how to determine if you should follow someone:
Look at their profile and their Tweets:
• Do they have a bio and do they sound like someone who shares your
professional interests?
• Do they have a nongeneric pic (no eggs!)
• Do they follow several people and are they followed back?
• How often do they Tweet? Hardly ever means you won't be able to learn
much from them; constant Tweeting might annoy you or monopolize your
timeline.
• Are their Tweets mostly on topics you are interested in with very few
"generic" or "off topic" Tweets?
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Follow Me!
•Finding Tweeps to Follow
WHO TO FOLLOW
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After you have followed a few folks, look at the people Twitter is suggesting to you.
Ask the same questions as the ones above.
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Many of the organizations you belong to or are interested in also Tweet. You can do
searches for them in the Twitter search box. Some examples are @achievethecore,
@ISTEconnects, @TNcurriculum, @TN_TETA. Don't forget to search for your
professional organization, too.
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Companies that serve the education and education technology sectors Tweet as well.
Search for them! A couple of examples are @Brainpop and @DiscoveryEd.
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Over time, watch who the people you follow tend to Retweet/RT frequently, and
check them out to see if you should add them to the accounts you follow.
Follow Me!
•Follower Management
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As you follow more people and Tweet more,
you will gain more followers. It's important to
check who is following you once in a while and
block people who are marketing spammers,
pornographers, and folks who just don't seem
to have a reason to follow you.
On your profile page, click on your Followers
list. Read their bio and look at their Tweets.
You can even look at who else they follow.
Always report pornographic accounts as
spam so they will be flagged for Twitter to
look at.
Use your own judgment on whom you allow to
follow you, but the more you try to keep it to
folks interested in what you are interested in,
the better chance you'll have of learning back
from them.
•Anatomy of a Tweet
•You Found a Great Link – What now?
• How
do you put this on
Twitter?
• Open Twitter on computer
or mobile device.
• Click on text box for new
messages.
• Describe the resource.
• Copy and Paste the URL
• Tweet
•How About those #@d Symbols?
The @ sign signifies that you are commenting directly to someone (i.e.
@jenmalonetn). Once you put the @ symbol in front of a username, the
person you are messaging will receive a notification. This comment will
be something that will show up on your personal profile page that other
people can see, and it will be a comment that will show on the newsfeed
of the person you sent it to and your mutual friends. Think of it like
“group text messaging”.
Note: There should be no space between the @ symbol and the
username.
This is called a hashtag and represents a group topic.
When a tweet is put out on Twitter with a hashtag (i.e.
#TED or #edchat) in it, then it becomes public for any
user to search on Twitter and find out what the Twitter
world is saying around the topic of the TED Conference
or EdChat.
•How About those #@d Symbols?
This is a direct message. It is similar to an email as no
one else can see this. It will still be required to meet the
character specifications (no more than 140 characters).
When you input this you must have a space between the
d and the username (i.e. d jenmalonetn). If there is no
space (djenmalonetn) it will show up on your newsfeed,
and that could get sticky.
This symbol is known as a retweet. It’s basically forwarding a
message that you like to all of the people that follow you. This
is a great way for messages and links to spread exponentially. A
best practice is for you to credit the tweet that you are
retweeting. If you click the retweet button on your newsfeed
page this will happen automatically. If you use the RT symbol
and copy and paste, simply add a (via @username) after the
RT.
•Caveats Before You Tweet
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You should consider all Tweets to be public. Even
people who do not have Twitter accounts can visit
your Twitter profile and see all of your Tweets.
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@Tweets can be seen by everyone on your Twitter
profile page. They are also seen in the streams of
anyone who follows both you and the person you are
sending the @Tweet to.
d Tweets, though private between you and another
Twitterer, can be copied and pasted.
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Interesting Side Note: All Tweets, except d Tweets, are
archived by the Library of Congress
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NEVER Tweet personal or identifying information
about your students.
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Be familiar with your district’s/employer’s social
media policies. Educators can be held accountable
even for “private” social media use.
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Be cautious about Tweeting personal info as well.
•Bloom’s Taxonomy & Twitter - Classroom
•Recap: Twitter in 60 Seconds
•Resources
Teachers Tech Lounge – Twitter for Professional Development Page
Sandy Kendall Livebinder – Twitter for Professional Development
•Contact Information
Jennifer Malone
Loudon County Schools
Technology/Middle School
Supervisor
Twitter: @jenmalonetn
www.loudoncounty.org
[email protected]
(865) 986-4970 X4601